


The Making of Us

by PhosphorescentBlue



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-04-09 06:30:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4337516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhosphorescentBlue/pseuds/PhosphorescentBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's not really gone. Not when she sometimes sneaks into his tent to sleep, the exhaustion bruising the skin under her eyes, her thready pulse sluggish with all it's been put through. </p><p>All he can do is hope for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a totally plausible thing (to an eternal optimist such as I). Now that we're five episodes into season 3, this has sadly gone the way of the canon-divergent AU. Ah, regrets. 
> 
> Either way, I hope you all enjoy!

* * *

**One**

* * *

Bellamy Blake wakes to someone scratching at his tent door and whispering his name. Exhausted, his heavy, sleep-addled head fights to pull him back under.

“What is it?” he slurs, cracking an eye open to take a stab at determining the time, but the dark within the canvas tent offers no clues. It’s definitely too early for chirping birds or any pre-dawn activity from Arkadia's occupants. Meaning he’s not been asleep very long.

The person outside hesitates before whispering, “Are you alone?”

“Yeah, I’m alone,” he says crankily, not bothering to keep his voice down. “Who’s there?”

His visitor hisses a command for him to be quiet and begins tugging at the nylon straps he had sewn on to secure the tent’s front flaps. He’s just struggling up onto his elbow’s, stiff muscles protesting, when the last of the ties comes loose and a shadowy figure pokes its head inside.

He’s had a few opportunities to curse the Ark survivors for installing those blasted floodlights around the camp perimeter. As it is, the bright light that fills his tent not only blinds him momentarily, but it also back-lights the person currently crawling inside. Her identity would remain a mystery to him, were it not for the slight corona that the light creates through her blonde hair.

Bellamy sits up fully, his heart jerking in his chest and his stomach dropping. “Clarke?”

Just as quickly as the light filled the small confines, it is doused out when she turns back around and reties the tent’s straps behind her.

“Jeez, Bellamy,” she hisses, her back still to him. “Why not say my name a bit louder, in case someone didn’t hear you the first—”

He frees himself from his tangle of blankets and pelts and is across the small space without realizing he's moved. All he knows is that one moment, he was sitting, stunned that Clarke Griffin had just slid into his tent, and the next, he is at the tent flaps himself, pulling her away from her work and hauling her into his arms. It surprises her enough to stop her diatribe in its tracks.

Of course, when they’ve hugged in the past, they have both been standing up. In some, far reach of his mind, he knows he should feel more awkward that he’s only in his underwear and that Clarke has ended up sprawled in his lap when he sinks back onto his blankets, clutching her to him. But he’s just so  _fucking_  happy to see her, to know that she’s okay, that he can’t care.

Three months. That’s how long it has been since they stumbled back to Arkadia from Mount Weather and Clarke refused to go through the gates, too wrecked by what they’d done to free their friends. Three months where Bellamy’s emotions have run the gamut between resentment, sadness, worry and, yes, loneliness without Clarke.

“You’re back,” he breathes out, gusty relief lacing his words.

Clarke squirms a little in his arms, but only so she can twist around to face him. Carefully, she moves her arms around to hug him back, but Bellamy notices that she’s shaking her head as she presses her forehead to his shoulder.

“I can’t… Bellamy, I can’t stay. Not yet.”

At this, he draws back. Not fully away, but enough that he hopes a palpable incredulity reaches her through the dark.

“What?” His voice is flat.

Instead of scooting away defensively, as she might have once done, Clarke burrows up against him again. He realizes that her time away has probably felt longer for her. While he has had handshakes, casual arms slung across his shoulders, and a few hugs, he can’t imagine Clarke doing her soul finding with a gang of cuddly grounders. It should come as no surprise that she wants to be as close to him as she is.

With a huff, he tightens his arms again, staring into the dark over her shoulder. She smells wild, like cold air, pine, and musty but pleasant earth.

Clarke doesn’t answer him for several beats and he thinks she might be subtly sniffing his clean skin as well. Finally, though, she does speak. “I still see it when I close my eyes. I still see  _them_.”

Bellamy’s eyes shut briefly, but he opens them when he finds words.  “I don’t get how being alone can help that.”

“How’re Jasper and Octavia?” she asks. He knows what she’s getting at. How can she forgive herself if they still condemn her?

He thinks on it. On Jasper’s refusal to be anywhere near him for two months after their return, but his slow, careful offers to help Bellamy with things around camp as time has passed. He thinks on Octavia, who was quicker to come around, asking Bellamy if he knows when Clarke will be back, if she is okay.

“I think,” he murmurs carefully, “that they want to forgive you.”

“ _Want_  to forgive?” Clarke asks, finally scooting off Bellamy’s thighs and moving further back in the tent. He follows her shadowy form, sitting cross-legged across from her as he flicks on the flashlight that he keeps by his pillow. 

He studies her dirt smudged face, wearing such a pained expression, and her eyes, which are nearly as dark as his in the minuscule light. She still wears the outfit he last saw her in, and seeing how worn it is in this short time, he feels another spike of warring sadness and bitterness.

Unable to decide between bluntness and tact, he tries for somewhere in the middle. “It isn’t easy when they can’t talk to you. When they can’t see how hard it’s been on you.”

She nods, looking down to fiddle with a loose thread on the edge of one of the blankets. “It feels like I can’t breathe sometimes. Every time I think about coming back, I remember how everyone, but those two especially, hated me in those last days.” When he opens his mouth to deny it, Clarke shakes her head. “Octavia and I have always had an uneasy relationship. But it’s never been as bad as when the Mountain Men bombed TonDC. She has no reason to forgive me after that.”

Bellamy shakes his head. “Maybe at first, but Lincoln has told her enough times that Lexa convinced you it was a necessary sacrifice, and I think she believes it.”

“But it wasn’t necessary, ultimately,” she whispers raggedly.

Sighing, he nods. “You could only trust them at the time. It would have made no sense to form an alliance with the grounder clans if we secretly thought they’d betray us the whole time.”

“But  _how_  did I become a person who thinks the end justifies the means? My dad would have never—”

“Clarke,” he cuts her off with hushed insistence. “Living down here has been hell. You can’t know how your dad would have responded, because none of us could have fathomed that it would be like this.”

She scrubs at her face and looks up at him with a wobbly smile. “I hope I can believe that sometime.”

And just like that, he knows he will not be able to convince her to stay. Not this time. However, maybe he’s convinced her to think of a time when she  _will_ stay.

“What do you need me to get you before you go?” He can’t stand the thought of her going back into the cold, but if she must, he can try to offer her something that will help her stay alive as winter creeps in.

“Nothing,” she shakes her head. It won’t do, but he lets her continue. “I got sidetracked. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” he snaps and then shakes his head in a subsequent apology of his own. He’s tired and his body is protesting with dragging weariness. “Please,” he adds.

Nodding, Clarke pulls in a careful breath. “I really came to tell you that Lexa’s circle is moving out for the season. I guess they’re migrating south before the weather gets colder. I think the winter is going to be worse than we expected.”

Frowning Bellamy considers this. Nuclear winter is the stuff of legends, but he’s unsure if that’s what’s in store for them or not.  “Do we need to move, too?”

“No. Not since they’re leaving. I think Lexa only wants to make sure there’s not too much competition for resources in the upcoming months. Just see to it that everyone doubles down on preparation.”

“She told you that?”

A flush spreads across her cheeks. “I might have been spying,” she mutters.

Bellamy’s lips curl, a surprising need to tease making itself known. “Please tell me you sang some action theme music? Like what they play in those old vids.”

Snorting, Clarke rolls her eyes. “And on that note, I’m going to go.”

Her words sober him, shoving any playfulness aside. He only notices he’s scooting to put himself between her and the tent entrance when her eyes narrow at him.

“Stay until morning,” he insists.

“Bellamy,” she sighs, wilting into herself a little. “I can’t. If my mom sees me, she won’t let me leave.”

“And I will?”

“Like you could stop me.” Her voice is low, threatening.

Bellamy fights down his own, rising hackles.  _Way to soothe the savage beast, Blake,_  he thinks to himself. Instead he tries for a conciliatory tone.  “You’re right. I won’t stop you. But… please? It’s below freezing out there. I’ll help you sneak out before dawn.”

“Which is in”—she glances at her watch—“three and a half hours.”

“So stay for three and a half hours. When was the last time you were actually warm while you slept?”

His suspicions that Clarke is living rough are confirmed when her eyes flicker longingly to the blankets underneath him.

“Great,” he says with false brightness. “That’s settled.” Before she can come up with another reason to leave right then, he flicks off the flashlight and noisily crawls back into his pallet of bedding, moving to the far side of it as he straightens out the blankets that cover him, leaving a corner folded back for her.

In the dark, he can almost hear the cogs in her mind working, telling her that it’s a bad idea, that she needs to be moving, but she finally huffs out a quiet, “Damn it,” and then the only sound comes from her shucking off her shoes and coat.

He tries not to congratulate himself on his cunning  _too_  much when she shuffles her way into his bed, tugging the covers up to her chin while she flops her head onto his pillow. 

They lie there for several minutes before he rolls onto his side to face her. She is close enough that he can see the slightest gleam of her eyes as they stare at each other. He only relaxes when her hand tentatively reaches out to brush his wrist, her thumb stroking over his pulse.

“Thank you, Bell,” she whispers.

He frowns at the strange goosebumps that shiver across his skin with each pass of her skin over his, but it emboldens him to move an arm around her, wanting to give her as much comfort as possible before she returns to her self-imposed exile. He knows he’s made the right decision when Clarke sighs gratefully and scoots closer to him, pressing her face to his chest.

Going along with this strange, new tenderness that he feels comfortable enough to show her, Bellamy presses a kiss to the top of her head.  

“Being down here’s been  _a_  making of us,” he whispers into her hair, “but I refuse to believe it’s  _the_  making of us. We’re not done, Clarke.”

“Thank you,” she whispers again. Then she slumps against him, already asleep.

He stays awake for a long time after that, feeling her breath puff out across his skin. He makes a mental list of the things he needs to gather for her before she leaves. He can give her one of his two flannel shirts, and maybe a couple pairs of socks. He will break into the food storage bins and steal some rations, and he'll try his luck at pilfering a flashlight from Raven’s shop.

He’s not sure when his busy plotting shifts to a dream where he’s trying to whittle out a canoe for her, insisting that she not get her tiara in a twist over the time it’s taking. Whatever the case, when Bellamy opens his eyes, the birds have untucked their heads from under their wings and started up their morning racket.  The blue, predawn light is stealing through a crack in the tent flaps, confirming what the cold along his front told him before he’d even fully woken.

Clarke is already gone.

Later, when he’s done staring pensively at the top of his tent and he drags himself out of the warm blankets to get dressed, Bellamy will discover that she’s helped herself to one of his pairs of socks without his offering.

He'll almost smile.

 


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

**Two**

* * *

They trudge through mud and rain for hours. It’s only when they find their first dry patch of forest in miles that Lincoln suggests they stop for the night.

While he gathers wood for the fire Octavia begins building, Bellamy wanders down a small embankment to collect water from the creek they have been following. The constant rain the last three weeks has left it swollen and fast. Several seconds pass as he watches the water tumbling over rocks, his equally frenetic thoughts slowing and coming to a strange stasis. Eventually, he catches himself in his stare. His mother once told him moments like that happen when a person’s brain needs rest. He believes it, as his bone-weary exhaustion has reached a swamping pitch.

Shaking his head, he dips his canteen into the water, ignoring the icy water rushing over his fingers.

“Hey, Jacques Cousteau, you coming back up here any time?” Octavia calls.

Rolling his eyes, he straightens, grimacing when he tries to dry his hands on his sodden trousers, and gives it up for a bad job. It’s not as if he hasn’t been in a perpetual state of sogginess for nearly a month, now. His hands might as well be “dewy” too.

The three of them sit at the fire, eating rabbit and talking only sparingly. The late autumn sun dips beneath the tree line before they’ve even reached evening, and they agree that they should follow its lead so they can get an early move on the next day. They have game to track and any number of reasons not to return to Arkadia until absolutely necessary.

Lincoln and Octavia find a divot free of knobby roots at the base of a tree where they curl up to sleep. Bellamy can hear them whispering, though he cannot make out their words. It’s likely something private, so he does his best not to eavesdrop. This is something new he’s trying: letting Octavia make her own decisions without his intervention, disapproval, or blessing. Bellamy’s little sister pointedly reminded him several weeks before that she isn’t his property, so his granting permission for her to love Lincoln is tantamount to giving the moon permission to orbit. A fallacy of false cause, so to speak.

So, in keeping with his chagrined promise, Bellamy flops down on the opposite side of the fire and stays quiet. He adjusts his pack beneath his head, settling to watch the crackling sprites of ash that dance with the flames.

Octavia and Lincoln fall silent not long after. He can hear night noises punctuated by their slow breaths, and he tries not to envy them for their ability to fall asleep so quickly while he  chases that trance-like state he’d found by the creek.

When the dry heat of the fire starts to burn his eyes, he clenches them closed. The sound of rustling brush behind him, however, has them springing back open just as quickly while he rolls over, knife already drawn.

His mouth drops open as he watches Clarke creep out of the shadowy forest into their clearing.

Seeing that he’s struggling to speak, she throws a finger up to her lips, nodding pointedly in the direction of Octavia and Lincoln as she moves carefully toward him.

As soon as she is within whispering’s earshot, he demands, “What is going on?”

She shrugs while she lowers herself to the ground, uncomfortable. “You three passed me about an hour before you stopped to make camp. I followed you to see what you were doing. You and Octavia are better fighters than hunters.”

Sniffing indignantly, he yanks a cloth containing their leftover rabbit out of is pack, unfolding it for her perusal. “I don’t see bad hunting here.”

“The rabbits in this forest are so embarrassingly tame, you could lure them onto a spear point,” she says dryly, an infuriating brow arched.  And then her hand darts out, grabbing a pinch of meat.

He maintains a pretense of wounded pride, even as he conveniently keeps the cloth open for her. She is thinner than the night he last saw her, now coming on four weeks ago, but otherwise, she appears relatively healthy. Though her cheeks are red with the cold, the inclement weather has not harmed her. Or at least not in any way that she cares to reveal to him.

Once she has eaten her fill of rabbit and helped herself to a few swigs of Bellamy’s water, Clarke peers through the flames, studying Octavia’s sleeping form. 

“You could go wake her up. She’d be glad to see you’re okay,” he suggests carefully.

But she’s already shaking her head before he finishes. “I can’t. Besides, she has no reason to worry about me.”

This, more than anything she said to him in the previous two conversations they’ve had over the last three months, enrages him.

“I know you think you don’t deserve concern or love from your friends and family, but that’s actually a really shitty thing to say, Clarke,” he whispers, his voice hoarse.

Startled, she tears her eyes away from his sister.

“Be upset. Be traumatized and horrified by what we did to survive. That’s understandable. It’s human. But don’t for a second be so inconsiderate of everyone else’s feelings. Don’t cheapen and reject our reasons for worrying about you. You’ve already done enough of that just by running away.”

Tears well in Clarke’s eyes. Her eyes dart to her lap, where she’s repeatedly rubbing her cold-chapped hands on her thighs. The teardrops land on the backs of her fingers and roll off to leave dark splotches on her jeans. Bellamy tries to watch it dispassionately, but his heart twinges as it continues.  

“I know,” she chokes brokenly. “But it’s so hard to understand why they don’t hate me like I hate myself.”

His eyes burn at her words, but he disguises it by ducking his head and rubbing at his temples. “Clarke, if anyone hated you for what we did at Mount Weather or leading it up to it, they’d not have been so hurt by your—by  _our_  actions. It hurt like it did because they love you. It’s fucking painful for them, but Jasper and Octavia and the others don’t want you back for some kind of retribution. Yeah, part of it is that they need you there to forgive you, like I said. But also, they love you. They don’t want you to be one more casualty of this hell we got launched into.”

She won’t meet his eyes. He suspects her nod isn’t so much acknowledgment as a weak attempt to stop his denial. It contradicts everything she has decided about herself.  But Bellamy is resigned. It’s becoming a circular argument; in fact, it has been a circular argument since the first time they had it.

Lincoln stirs, but he only rolls away, body going slack again. As soon as he’s certain the other man remains asleep, Bellamy turns back to Clarke. A change of subject is in order.

“Are you here with more grounder news?”

She shakes her head. “No. I just wanted… I just thought I’d say hi.”

Bellamy manages not to smile smugly and he scolds an inner voice that feels flattered and almost boastful. He should remember that it isn’t some great compliment that she is willing to break her human contact fast with him and him alone. She knows his opinion on her decision to leave.

Yet… it means something, doesn’t it? That she trusts him so implicitly even when he’s made no secrets of his feelings about her absence.

So he holds out his canteen, a small armistice in their struggle with Clarke’s grief.

She drinks noisily, eyes closed. Bellamy finds himself zoning out, as he did at the creek. Transfixed, he watches the muscles in her throat move while she swallows the water. A trickle escapes her mouth, rolling down her chin and into the divot of tendons that form a V between her collarbones.

_I could sip that drop of water._

That’s when he remembers himself. And realizes what just flitted through his mind. Scowling, he nearly smacks his temple. Lusty daydreams about  _Clarke_?  He’s even more exhausted than he’d originally thought.

Eager to put himself back on even footing, he yawns loudly, theatrically, perhaps.

“Well, I think it’s time for sleep. You going to stick around by the fire for a bit?”

He expects her to hem and haw, but she only smiles eagerly, clutching his canteen to her chest.

Nodding perfunctorily as a way to mask just how pleased he is, Bellamy stretches out. He’s not sure what it says that he’s slightly disappointed when Clarke doesn’t curl up around him. Instead, she lies flat on her back, her shoulder and hip the only two points of her body that make contact with him.

Still, it’s as if a spell has come over the forest. The fire crackles and an owl hoots, but it’s nearly dreamlike, the way the stars’ crisp lights peek through the barren trees. A lulling calm settles over him, and he feels oddly content to be lying there under the night sky with Clarke Griffin.

“Have you encountered any new and strange animals in your time out here?” he murmurs.

“Just your usual house of nuclear fallout horrors,” she muses. “But I came across some kind of huge, venomous spider. I threw it into the gorilla pit. I have high hopes that it’ll find our killer ape friend soon.”

Bellamy swivels his head to look wryly at her profile. “That’ll show her. I suppose I don’t have to point out how stupid it is to  _willingly_  go back to the gorilla’s den.”

“I was actually hiding from it when I found the spider. But it was chasing a deer, so I was in and out of the area in no time. No one was any the wiser.”

He knows he should feel stark terror at the thought of Clarke enacting her own brand of eco-terrorism. Somehow, though, he only wants to laugh. Perhaps it’s because she’s managed to go this long relatively unscathed. Perhaps it’s because she dazzles him a little with her strength even as she has plenty of demons and weaknesses.

Whatever it is, it has him smiling, a wide grin that hurts his cheeks. When she smiles back, hesitantly at first, and then with more enthusiasm, he counts it as a small win in a war with no tallies.

“You have a long hike tomorrow. You should sleep,” she instructs him.

“Yes, ma’am.” He throws in a jaunty salute for good measure.

“Asshole.”

“Sock thief.”

She grins up at the sky, no remorse in her posture. “What’s your proof?”

“The fact that your socks are so big they’re drooping over the tops of your shoes.”

“Oh, of course they must be yours, then. If socks are huge, they can only belong to Bellamy Blake.”

“Yup,” he agrees mildly.

“Would you describe them as freakishly huge, or just big enough to bring your partner’s feet a lot of pleasure?”

He chokes. “Really, Clarke? A penis size joke?”

She shrugs in an “I’m just saying” sort of way and closes her eyes. A beatific smile settles on her lips.

“My socks are very nicely sized,” he grumbles. “You’d be  _lucky_  to wear them.”

“Hmm. If that’s the case, maybe I  _should_  steal a pair sometime to get a better idea,” she says, not bothering to reopen her eyes. Which is for the better because he finds his heart thumping in his chest and he worries it might be visible to an outside observer.

“Well, you know where I keep them.”

He goggles at his bold words. Are he and Clarke…  _flirting_? Is he actually feeling giddy and bashful about some clunky innuendos?

Glancing up, he can’t find any fireballs crashing down to the earth. The world isn’t ending. Ipso facto, this probably doesn’t constitute ‘flirting.’ Especially when his anatomy is the subject of their banter.

Satisfied with this logic, he bumps Clarke’s shoulder with his. She bumps back before scooting in close enough that her whole side presses against his.

His grin widens as sleep tugs him under.

Some hours later, Bellamy has a vague memory of a whispered farewell in his ear and soft lips pressing to his cheek. Sluggish though he is upon waking, he swears he opened his eyes immediately after she pulled away, but he has no idea where she went in the last vestiges of dark.

As he, his sister, and Lincoln pack up not long after, Bellamy supposes he should feel weary after one more encounter with Clarke where he couldn’t convince her to come home. He should worry more, but he can’t. Not when his gut tells him that she’ll be back soon. She just  _has_  to.

Hauling her rucksack of supplies over her shoulders, Octavia stares at him, unimpressed by his chipper attitude. With a roll of her eyes, she swings around and heads out of their camp area, calling behind her, “Your smile is creepy.”

He sticks his tongue out at her back, like the mature, twenty four-year-old that he is.

“Don’t mind her. Seeing an old friend would cheer her up, too,” Lincoln muses, and then he strides ahead, leaving Bellamy blinking in his wake.

Apparently, he and Clarke lack subtlety. It’s something they’ll have to work on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mostly I'm just trash for Bellamy taking care of Clarke. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

_**Three** _

* * *

Clarke’s return to Arkadia a week and a half later does not spark any impromptu celebrations. If anything, her reappearance intensifies the suspicious glances and whispers that began circulating the day she left. Then and now, Bellamy has heard more than one Ark survivor call her “The Prodigal Daughter”.

Prodigal, as in feckless and wasteful.

His lips curl derisively each time he hears it. He satisfies some of his frustration by interrupting snide commentary about Chancellor Griffin’s profligate offspring with different, scathing responses .

“Yeah, she really is the poster child for over-privileged brats. I can’t stand it, the way she insisted on keeping your children alive before you got here, and then saving them a second time under traumatic circumstances. Who does she think she is, being distressed by it? Kids these days, am I right?”

So far, no one has had much to say to him in response.

When Jasper comes to find him in the early afternoon on the day of her return, Bellamy’s helping Wick run electricity to a newly constructed outbuilding. The quiet way Jasper says his name had his head snapping up, eyes narrowing. Normally, the teenager’s tone, expression, and posture would indicate that someone had died.  His gut clenching, Bellamy slowly nods his head, telling Jasper he’s heard him.

“Clarke,” Jasper says, voice stiff, “Clarke’s back.”

It’s a strange moment of joy for Bellamy, one he doesn’t feel right showing. Fighting the impulse to grin and run off to find her, he manages to keep still, keep his face neutral.

“Just now?”

Jasper nods. “She’s with her mom.”

As he wipes some grease and dirt from his hands on a rag, Bellamy considers the situation. “You talk to her?” he asks carefully.

“No,” Jasper’s normally expressive face shutters.

Bellamy glances back at Wick, who’s watching the proceedings with interest. “We’re gonna take a walk. I’ll be back in a bit.”

“Doubtful,” Wick says cheerfully. “Tell Clarke to come say hi when she can.”

Rolling his eyes, Bellamy veers off toward the perimeter fence, Jasper close behind. They move slowly alongside the fencing, taking turns chucking various materials at the live wires. The resultant sizzles and sparks serve as a good placeholder for talking.

Fifteen minutes in, they’ve only covered a few meters of ground between each stop. Bellamy struggles hard not to think about just how close Clarke is to him now. He scolds himself when he nearly asks Jasper if he'll take a raincheck.

Finally, though, Jasper blows out a noisy breath, linking his fingers behind his neck and staring up at the sky.

“Should I talk to her?”

 Bellamy bends to retrieve a soggy twig. Handing it to the boy, he nods. “Yes. But you get to decide when that is and how.”

“Is there a point?”

Bellamy arches an eyebrow. “You maybe have noticed that you’re talking to me again. And Jasper, I am every bit as responsible as Clarke.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t ghost as soon as it was over.”

“Everyone is fighting a hard battle,” Bellamy murmurs.

“What?” Jasper asks, though he’s not really paying attention.

“Nothing. Just quoting Plato or Philo of Alexandria. Or Ian Maclaren. Depends on who you ask.”

Jasper stares at him blankly for a moment before shaking his head to clear the distraction. “Okay. But….” He bites his lip nervously.

“But what?” Bellamy prods.

“How do I start talking to her? How do I come back from calling her a murderer? Especially when I’m not sure how else to describe it?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. But maybe there _isn’t_ a way to describe what happened. Clarke and I pulled a lever. People died as a result. Other people would have died just as horribly if we hadn’t.”

“Yes, but—” 

“The hardest thing about being down here is that survival is not a system of checks and balances,” Bellamy interrupts. “This wasn’t retribution. It was the choice to save our friends when we couldn’t choose all or nothing.  It was a one where our hands _became_ the embodiment of desperation.”

Jasper won’t meet his eyes, so Bellamy continues.

“I know you loved Maya and she saved us just as much as Clarke did. The horrible reality is that heroes die tragically just as often as the victims and the bystanders. One day, we’ll all die and we probably won’t have much say in the circumstances.”

“Damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” Jasper says bitterly, but the lines of grief and rage in his face have relaxed ever so slightly.

“It’s bullshit, but if we decide not to passively die, we’ll probably make several more decisions that have no right or wrong answers but a lifetime of repercussions.”

Jasper tosses the twig. The fence makes a zipping hum and some sparks fly. “But why did Clarke leave?”

“It took me three months to come up with the answers I just gave you,” Bellamy shrugs. “You were able to see me trying to find them, but I promise you, Clarke was searching for them, too. I’m not saying I agree with her, but she went searching in the only way she believed she could.”

“How do you know? You didn't know she was back until I told you.”

Awkwardly, Bellamy shuffles his feet. “I just know her pretty well.”

He’s surprised to see Jasper roll his eyes and hears him almost laugh. “You’ve seen her since she left, haven’t you?”

Unable to lie, Bellamy nods sheepishly. “I tried to get her to come back, but she was so crushed by her guilt, she couldn’t see beyond it. It terrified her.”

“A terrified Clarke Griffin is something I’ve seen, but I managed to forget about it,” Jasper muses. “It’s so rare that it’s probably an omen of some kind. We should do some sort of moon ritual just to be on the safe side.”

It startles laugh out of Bellamy, and Jasper offers a small, wry smile in return. “I’ll talk to Clarke,” he promises. “But I need to find what I’ll say.”

“You don’t have to say much of anything. Just tell Clarke she’s not a monster, and only do that when you really believe it.”

“Getting there,” Jasper sighs, “But I’m not ready yet.”

“Okay,” Bellamy agrees. Taking his cue, he turns towards the Ark.

“Hey, Bellamy?” Jasper calls.

He turns back around to look at the younger boy, brows raised inquisitively.

“I’m not ready to talk to Clarke, but could you tell her that I will be soon? I may not know what to say and I’m still broken a little, but she _is_ still my friend.”

Smiling softly, Bellamy nods. “Yeah, I’ll tell her that. That will mean a lot to her.”

* * *

In the end, he doesn’t see her until she’s been back for several hours. Her mother keeps her firmly ensconced in her quarters and doesn’t permit anyone in. When Clarke fails to appear even late into the evening, Bellamy resigns himself to the fact that he won’t get to speak to her until morning.

It’s not as if he has any room to complain, he chides himself. No one else has had a few camp-outs with her since she left

Still, he acknowledges the pangs of disappointment. It is difficult not to be overeager when he _knows_ she’s so close. Especially after several nights where he’d hoped she would appear to no avail.

Determined to get some rest despite his eagerness, he moves off to his tent. As he crosses the campground, he spots Abby Griffin in deep discussion with Marcus Kane at the door to the Ark station. He peers beyond her, hoping to get a glimpse of Clarke, but it’s already too dark outside and the doorway is nothing but a deep shadow. Even as he loses sight of Chancellor Griffin and Kane, he frowns. Clarke’s mother doesn’t look particularly overjoyed, like one might expect of a parent whose child has reappeared after months away in a dangerous forest.

Shrugging it off, he makes quick work of his tent’s ties and ducks inside, only to freeze half in and half out of the entrance.

Clarke lies fast asleep in his bed (on _his_ side, he notes, and tells himself that he’s annoyed by it). She has cocooned herself under the blankets he can only see the top of her head and her eyes.  

Moving quietly, he shuts up the tent and turns back to consider the situation. Though he feels strange staring at her, he can’t help but study her as he takes off his shoes and coat and empties his pockets.

The flashlight she brought with her into the tent is on, throwing the dark bruises of color under her eyes into relief. It’s no surprise that she’s exhausted, of course. He can only hope that she’s been out for a while and will stay that way for several hours to come.

Debating whether not he should sleep in his trousers, Bellamy finally settles for stripping to his underwear but leaving his undershirt on. It’s not as if Clarke has been missish about his sleep attire in the past, he reasons, though he suspects he might be blushing all the same. Bellamy Blake blushing about being in his underwear in front of a girl… it’s a bizarre, inexplicable sensation.  

The nights have been so cold that he’s had trouble falling asleep until the bedding warms up. Tonight, he can’t help but give a small sigh of satisfaction when he crawls into nice, Clarke-heated blankets.

“All right, Princess,” he whispers. “You’ve earned your keep.”

Risking pulling the blankets from her face, he peers at her. She must have come to his tent right after bathing, he realizes. Her damp hair is deeply tangled, as if she didn’t even consider brushing it before falling into his—and why does the ownership thrill him?—bed.

While he watches her, the chill air reaches her exposed face. Her nose scrunches and she shivers, making a discontented noise in the back of her throat. Before the cold can wake her, though, Bellamy slides over to her. He tugs at her waist until she settles against him and she sighs, nuzzling his chest in contentment.

He frowns, uneasy about his actions. If she were awake and didn’t care to be in such close proximity, she would sock him in the solar plexus and move back. As it is, he just manhandled her without her knowledge.

Just as he is about to scoot away again, her eyes flutter. He sucks in a startled gasp at the heat that flares low in his belly when her heavy-lidded, slumberous gaze meets his. The corners of her mouth tip up in a sleepy smile and Bellamy’s mouth goes dry.

“Hey,” she mumbles. “I hope it’s okay that I’m here. Might have been awkward if you brought anyone back to the tent with you only to find me in your bed. Shoulda thought of that.”

While he stutters an assurance that she’s “fine-great-perfect-swell-great-fine-yeah” (to think: he’s always prided himself for his quick, articulate mind), she wiggles until she is pressed closer to him, her left arm worming its way under his side so she can hold him around his waist.

“I’m too tired to ask for a translation so I’ll take that as permission,” she says with a yawn. “I had to get away from my mom. She’s pissed off and might be building stocks for my public flogging. Fair warning: you could be thrown in them too for aiding and abetting—ha, a _bedding_ —if you don’t kick me out.”

Smirking at her tired rambling, Bellamy shrugs. “I bet a wood collar would bring out the color of my eyes.”

Clarke snickers quietly and lays a kiss on his pectoral. He hopes she doesn’t notice the way he shivers at the contact. “She’ll calm down by tomorrow probably. I’ve been invading your personal space a lot lately. I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t answer for several seconds and when he does, he can’t understand why it’s so hard to get such simple words out. “I don’t mind.”

When she doesn’t respond, he ducks his head to peer at her face. She’s asleep again, breathing slow and steady.

Bellamy rests his chin on the crown of her head, frowning at the dirt-smudged canvas of his tent. He should turn off the flashlight, but it’s behind him and he would have to pull away from Clarke’s arms to turn and reach it.

Confused, he stays awake for a long time after, looking for any reason other than the glaringly obvious one that tells him just why it is he doesn’t want to move away from her.

* * *

He is unsurprised to find her gone from the tent when he wakes up the next morning. Apparently, she’s part of that alien group of “morning people”. If he ever needs to make a list of reasons the two of them are incompatible (not that _that_ will ever be necessary, he scoffs feebly to himself), that would probably top the list. He’s always been suspicious of people who enjoy waking up before the sun’s even risen.

Stumbling out of his tent, he makes his way to the cantina to find breakfast. Before he reaches it, however, he draws up short when he spots Clarke sitting at a table with Jasper.

They don’t sit directly across from each other, they aren’t speaking, and as far as Bellamy can tell, they only glance across the table when the other isn’t looking.

It could frustrate him, the way they’ll likely tiptoe around each other for a while. Instead, he chooses to take it as a sign of hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up next: drunk Clarke and sober Bellamy. What ever will happen?
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and for all of the lovely comments and kudos! I truly appreciate the encouragement!


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

**Four**

* * *

 

At Monty’s near-pleading, Clarke reluctantly agrees to take an evening off. She’s spent the majority of her time back organizing and reorganizing the camp’s precious few medical supplies. Bellamy recognizes it for what it is: avoidance.

Avoidance of her mother, whose shifts always fall conveniently counterpoint to Clarke’s. Avoidance of the other Ark survivors, whom she rarely sees when she’s tucked back in the small closet beyond the medical bay. She avoids their friends and scurries around the camp refusing to make eye contact with anyone.

In fact, the only person she doesn’t avoid is Bellamy.

She materializes when he goes to the cantina for meals and all of the breaks that she allows herself (which are admittedly few) fall in line with his. When he leaves the camp, she usually goes with him, or is near the gate when he returns.

She sleeps in his tent every night.

If it were anyone but Clarke, he would suspect that she was scared. But no, she’s still first to confront wrongdoers and naysayers, quick to voice her opinions, and friendly to the patients she attends. She speaks politely to everyone and only looks uncomfortable when she does get shoehorned into socializing.

This isn’t necessarily codependency and definitely not a search for a protector.

So the night of Monty’s impromptu gathering, Bellamy asks her about it after she’s had time to knock back some moonshine.

“I’m not following you,” she defends herself waspishly, chucking a twig into the large fire in front of them.

He holds up a placating hand. “I know that. I wasn’t saying you’re tracking me and scribbling observations in a daily log. I’m just wondering why you’re sticking so close.”

Her shoulders twitch, as if she’s trying to shrug off an irritating itch on her back. “If it’s annoying you, I’ll stop—“

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” he interrupts. “Like I said, you’re fine. I just was wondering if something’s bothering you. It’s like you’ve cut yourself off from everyone in case they randomly decide you’re a pariah.”

“Everyone’s far too grateful for that to happen,” she mutters unhappily.

He just waits, careful not to stare at her too pointedly.

“I avoid everyone except you because you’re the only one who gets what I’m feeling.”

Bellamy already knows what she’s talking about, but still he asks, “Which is?”

The look she shoots him tells him that she isn’t impressed or fooled by his line of questions. To his surprise, though, she doesn’t dissemble. “What it’s like to kill people—“

“But—“he starts to interrupt.

“Let me finish. I’m working on being… not okay, but accepting of it. It’s not something I’m going to go into denial about or anything. It’s a shitty deal and maybe there was another way to handle it—wait, Bellamy. Don’t interrupt me—but I can’t find one, even though I’ve spent _months_ wracking my brain.”

This time, he keeps quiet, letting her find a way to describe what realization she must have had that allowed her to return to camp.

“So the only thing I can tell myself is that, even if there was another way for us to save everyone, that doesn’t mean we necessarily made the wrong decision. We did what we did because we were desperate.”

“I don’t think anyone thinks otherwise, Clarke. Not even Jasper.”

She swallows a large gulp of moonshine, wincing and clearing her throat. “Yeah, that’s the problem. That’s why I’m wearing out my welcome with you.”

“You’re _not_ ”—he sighs and shifts gears—“What is the problem?”

“You aren’t celebrating it and you don’t hate me for it. Everyone’s opinion of me is split down the center, I feel like. I hear whispers as I walk by, one person calls me a hero and a person three feet from them calls me a genocidal maniac. You don’t think I’m either.”

Bellamy’s brow furrows. He’s not had such a polarized reception. Perhaps it’s because of her mother, or because she became the leader of their alliance with the Grounders. Either way, he experiences a pang in his ribs, thinking that either estimation of her is an awful lot of pressure to put on an eighteen-year-old girl, not matter what she’s done.

“You’re right. I don’t think you’re a genocidal maniac.”

“Or a hero,” she presses.

On that count, she’s completely wrong. Maybe killing the people on Mount Weather wasn’t heroic, but her reason for it certainly was. But he just nods once to keep her from pressing it.

“You understand how it feels, so I stay near you because you don’t tell me to feel different.”

“Okay,” he says simply. “But Clarke, if you ever start to believe something, don’t ever believe the people who think badly of you.”

She stares at him, opens her mouth to say something else.

“Clarkemy!” Monty shouts from the other side of the fire. “I know you two think you look super dramatic and attractive in the firelight, but you’re really bumming us out. Come sit with us!”

 They glance at each other. When Clarke huffs out some small semblance of a laugh, Bellamy nods and puts a hand to the small of her back, following her to go sit with their friends.

* * *

Three hours and too many drinks later, they stagger into his tent.

Clarke is giggling, trying to sing a bawdy folk song but losing her composure each time she gets to the more risqué lines.

“’A friggin’ in the riggin’? Really?” he asks, grinning.

Slouched against him, she covers her mouth in a poor attempt at quelling her laugh. “It’s poetry,” she sniggers.

He catches her as she loses her balance and eases her onto the blankets. “It’s something, alright.”

Flopping onto her back, Clarke beams up at him. “How does a folk song _become_ a folk song? Do we just come up with one and say, ‘Listen up, everyone, this song’s gonna be epic, so don’t forget it’? Because that shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Why don’t you get ready for bed,” he suggests, ignoring her implied suggestion that they explore their songwriting abilities.

Clarke rolls her eyes. “Why? Is it past curfew?”

“No, because you’ve already revisited all that moonshine you drank once. You should sleep as much of it off as you can.”

“You’re so wise.” And then she starts wriggling out of her pants without a second thought.

Bellamy coughs and turns away, shuffling through his small pile of clothing for something to do. When he hears her hiss and curse sharply, he whirls back around.

He wishes he hadn’t. She’s lying on his bed, tongue stuck between her teeth and feet in the air as she wrestles with her boots, which she didn’t bother to remove before shucking her pants. After a full minute where she makes no headway, he sighs, feeling terribly sorry for himself.

“Here,” he says, batting her hands away. “How hard is it to untie a shoe?”

Unbothered, Clarke happily leaves the boot-and-pants divesting to Bellamy while she ponders lyrics for her folk song.

“Once long ago when gold was the sun, a rogue with no breeches had no choice but to run. He’d charmed the fair lass, begged she join him and hunt, but when her kin came upon them, the rogue was licking her c—”

“Done,” Bellamy announces loudly. He assures himself that he’s only imagining the desperate tinge to his voice. He tosses her tangle of boots, socks, and trousers over his shoulder. They clunk loudly, and he disguises a look of relief when he sees he’s managed to distract her.

Song (blessedly) forgotten, Clarke exhales a gusty sigh of contentment. “It sucks we have to wear pants.”

“I tend to appreciate them,” he mutters, determinedly looking away from the stretch of her pale legs leading up to her black underwear.

“Never took you for the modest sort.” She emits boozy laugh. “In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen your nipples more than my own.”

He’s not flustered, he tells himself. It’s just the alcohol causing burning heat to travel up his neck, across his face, and into the tops of his ears.

“That’s not true… you know what, never mind. Forget it. Do you need to be up early tomorrow?”

“It’s Wednesday, right?” Off his nod, she runs through her mental schedule. “Yeah, I need to be back at Medical at dawn. I’ll be quiet and try not to step on you. Much.”

Scowling, Bellamy shoves off his own pants and coat, climbing into the cold bed. 

Clarke must see his expression, because she grows serious. Or at least tries to. “I’ll stop bothering you soon,” she promises. “I just need to make myself a tent. Or a lean-to. Or maybe a yurt.”

“Clarke?”

“Hmm?”

“Go to sleep.”

She gives him a mock salute. “Whatever you say, Bossy Bellamy.”

He sighs as she shuffles from side to side, ineffectually flopping around to get under the blankets.

“Need some help?” he asks dryly.  

Scoffing, Clarke rolls clear off of the pallet. “It’s not quantum physics. I can manage some stupid blankets.”

Bellamy holds his hands up in mock surrender, starting to enjoy himself. “I shouldn’t have doubted y— _mph_.”

She’s finally figured out the blanket situation and hurries under them.  In her drunken fervor, she overshoots her mark, landing sprawled on top of him. Her legs tangle with his and her face presses between his bicep and ribs. 

Bellamy lies there stunned, staring down his torso to the top of her head. His hands are still are still raised, he notices vaguely, but he can’t move.

Snickering, Clarke wriggles around until she’s straddling him, swaying a little as she sits up, bracing herself on his chest.

“Hellooooo,” she drawls, waggling her eyebrows at him. “What’s a nice boy like you doing in a dive like this?” And then she dissolves into another stream of giggles.

 _At least_ she _thinks she’s funny,_ he thinks, disturbingly out of his element.

He opens his mouth to speak, but the only sound that escapes is a garbled wheeze. He coughs, clears his throat, and adopts a stern expression. “Clarke, you need to sleep. You’re drunk.”

“And you’re grumpy,” she parries.

He tries not notice the weight of her astride his hips, the softness of her thighs as they hug him. The warmth where she’s pressed intimately against—

“Ha,” he laughs, though it’s more of a nervous bray. “You sure won that round. Good job. Okay, time to sleep!”

When Bellamy’s hands clasp her hips in an attempt to move her off of him, she falls forward, boneless, burying her face against his neck.

“You’re surprisingly soft for all of those lumpy muscles of yours,” she mumbles into his skin, poking him in the side.

A flattered grin spreads across Bellamy’s face before the rest of her words catch up with him. “Thanks—wait, lumpy?”

Clarke nuzzles his throat. “Don’t worry. It’s a good thing.”

Taking her word for it, he strokes the back of her head. They remain quiet until he breaks the silence several minutes later.

“What’s different?” he asks her.

“Huh?”

“You used to be the bane of my existence.”

She cants her head away from his neck, resting her cheek on his collarbone. “Hmm? I’m _not_ anymore?” her voice is low, languorous. It jump starts that strange clenching low in his stomach again.

“Well, okay, I used to think you were _only_ the bane of my existence. I grew to respect you, sure, but respect doesn’t automatically mean I want to hang out and gossip while we flintknap projectiles together.” 

Bellamy expects her to interrupt and point out that he wouldn’t choose to knap with _anyone_ because he’s terrible at it, but the liquor has tapped into some surprising stores of patience in her. He chooses not to question it.

“So I get how I came to respect you pretty quickly. And, sure, we shared some intense life-threatening experiences. That forces a certain bond. But a lot of those things, we share with a ton of other people. I somehow don’t think I’d let Jasper or Monroe squash me the way you are right now.”

His fingers set to work combing through her hair, combing through tangles. He accidentally yanks on a particularly tough snarl and she huffs, annoyed. “Sorry, sorry. Anyway. When did it change? How the hell did you also become my best friend? I can’t pinpoint it and I _hate_ it when I can’t figure something out.”

This time, Clarke makes a snorting noise. He pinches her waist before she can say anything about how he must be in a constant state of agitation, then. “Be nice,” he chides.

When she doesn’t respond, he tilts his head awkwardly to get a peek at her face.

She’s fast asleep, contentedly drooling on him. Equal parts of him are mortified and relieved that she’ll likely have little memory of this in the morning.

Moving his arms around her, he hugs her to him for the barest moment and then rolls them both to their sides. Clarke settles on the bed, barely responding beyond rubbing her face on his pillow and sighing.  As he returns to lying on his back, though, she scoots forward and rests her forehead against his arm, one hand splaying warmly over his stomach.

He allows himself the indulgence of fitting his fingers in between hers.

“How the hell did you become _more_ than my best friend?” he asks the dark above their cocoon of blankets.

Neither it, nor Clarke, responds.

* * *

She leaves of the tent at four in the morning, leaving Bellamy to roll over into the warm spot she's just vacated. Blankets that are merely warmed by her, that still smell like her, are not what he'd prefer. But, then, he isn't sure he can ever admit just what he _would_ prefer.

He doesn't see her again until that afternoon. She stomps over to him, eyes puffy and narrowed from too much bright light. Her skin's grey pallor matches the blustery cloud cover.

"How are you feeling, Princess?" he asks her cheerfully, continuing to stack wood with an exaggerated, cheerful whistle. 

She flips him off and stumbles away to sit with a much more sympathetic Monty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe Bellamy wasn't supportive of Clarke's folk song. Spoil sport.
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who's continued reading, left Kudos, and taken time to drop me a comment about the story. I truly appreciate it!


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

**Five**

* * *

The first snow arrives with little warning.

The first flakes began to fall before dawn and by sundown, several inches rest on bare branches and tent tops. Along with it comes the cold, biting humidity, the kind that seeps into the bones and leaves a person shivering and perpetually damp.  

The occupants of Arkadia have no time to marvel at the blankets of white. They spend that day in double time, making a last-ditch effort at gathering their winter stores. They haul armfuls of wood into both communal and individual piles while others harvest what they can from the forest before the snows collects and covers it.

Bellamy, Miller, and Monroe lead a hunting team. Perhaps the one advantage of the precipitous snow is that game has had no warning and no time to retreat for the season. The party returns as satisfied as possible with the three deer, six rabbits, and five geese, knowing all too well that their pickings will slim down if they can’t catch more soon.

By the time Bellamy trudges through the ankle-deep snow to his tent at the end of the day, he wonders if he’ll ever regain feeling in his toes or sinuses. His hands aren’t much better, but the strips of leather he wrapped around them have helped somewhat. Instead of one block of ice, like he suspects his toes are, each finger is its own, individual block of ice. Progress.

Over the past few days, he’s worked to school any pleased reaction at Clarke spending so much time in his tent. Now, he nearly whimpers with gratitude when he pushes aside the pelt door liner and warm light hits him. With a groan, he ducks inside and hops around, trying to remove his boots before he can track in too much snow.

Task accomplished, Bellamy glances up at Clarke while he works to shed his outer layers of clothing. If it weren’t for the stinging feeling in his skin at the sudden rush of warmth, he’d laugh at the sight of her. She sits, scowling in the middle of his bed, all of his blankets swirled around her like a cloak. In fact, she looks like a disembodied head resting on top of a pile of fabric and fur.

“I have some terrible news for you,” he says, sniffling when his sinuses decide to thaw that all at once. Clarke just arches an eyebrow at him as he pads over to her. “You’re going to have to share.”

“Well, for fuck’s sake, hurry up and get in,” she orders, flinging open her blanket cape at the last possible second when he drops to his knees. The moment he’s seated beside her, she awkwardly tries to wrestle the blankets closed again. She nearly strangles him in the process, since her arm wound up around his shoulders when he sat down.

“Need some help?” he wheezes.

“Nope.” She elbows aside the hand he lifts to do so. “I got it.”

She only accomplishes her task by practically diving across his lap (using his neck for support) and scrabbling for the other edge of the covers. With a triumphant _Ah ha,_ she finally succeeds, though she’s a little winded when she settles back beside him.

He stares at her. “Seriously?”

Sniffing proudly, she side-eyes him. “What?”

Bellamy decides he shouldn’t be surprised. She once threatened to clock him with a cast iron skillet when he described her using a phrase he’d learned as a child. Apparently, she’d not seen _independent as a hog on ice_ as a flattering term.

Shaking his head, he changes the subject. “You know, the film archives on the Ark led me to believe that snowflakes on my nose and eyelashes were a _good_ thing.”

Her scowl returns. “Propaganda at its finest, clearly.”

“Propaganda distributed by whom?”

Wiggling closer to him, she shrugs. “From what I understand, one of the United States’ problems was its flagrant loopholes in campaign financing. I bet snow had a Super PAC.”

“That’s pretty devious,” he says mildly. “Especially for non-sentient, frozen precipitation.”

Clarke’s lips twitch for the first time, but she maintains her steely-eyed glare. “You know what they say.”

“Do I?”

“It’s always the quiet ones you gotta look out for.”

Bellamy chuckles. “Good thing we’ve wised up, eh?”

She finally does smile, tilting her head to rub her cheek on the blankets. “I say we present our suspicions to the Council. Start strategizing a counter attack.”

He nods. “Any ideas?”

“I’m thinking, using mainly fire, we _melt_ it.”

“I’ve never been more awed by your prowess,” he intones somberly.

She nods graciously. “I know, if it didn’t mean dropping the blankets, you’d be giving me a slow clap right now.”

They grin at each other until a gust of wind whistles past, reminding them of the blizzard outside.

“I hate being cold,” she sighs, and then promptly buries her face in Bellamy’s neck.

He yelps at the icy tip of her nose pressing against his skin, retaliates by shoving a hand down the back of her collar, his fingers still frigid.

“Holy shitting stardust!” she squeals.  

“Quid pro quo,” Bellamy singsongs, laughing as she tries to dodge his hands without leaving their cocoon. “Just think, you’re probably saving my fingers from the harsh reality of frostbite. You’re a hero so many times over.”

She dives into the blanket cave and head butts his stomach. Not enough to knock the wind out of his diaphragm, but enough to topple him backwards on the bed. She follows him over, lying on his wrist when it comes loose from her shirt.

They flop around, scrabbling for control, cursing and laughing. Bellamy tries to return both hands to her shirt collar and Clarke ties to regain her pin hold of them under her body.  In the back of his mind, Bellamy registers that the'yre sort of _groping_ each other, but he’s never had more fun groping a person in his life, and if the way she’s cackling is anything to go by, she agrees.

A cranky voice calls from the next tent over, “Sound carries differently in the cold. We can hear you having sex. Pipe down.”

This sends Clarke off in another peal of laughter, but she gaily calls, “Sorry, Miller! Sweet dreams!” And then she moans loudly, theatrically. “Bellamy, your hands are just so big and cold. But I know how you can warm them up!”

He suspects he’s blushing furiously, which is just _ridiculous_ , and he can’t help the hysterical giggle that escapes at her antics. She simply beams at him, though, canting her head in encouragement for him to play along.

“Oh, baby,” he says, only a little woodenly. “You sure do know how to light my fire.”

 _‘Light my fire?’_ she mouths at him, shaking with mirth.

He shrugs helplessly. He’s just as baffled by the abandonment of his silver, seductive tongue.

“Ooh, Bell,” she simpers with her voice pitched loudly again. “I’ll keep your fire lit all night if you let me. I’ll keep it lit _long_ and _hard_.”

Bellamy chokes, at once entertained and oddly aroused by her overdone dirty talk.

“You two are disgusting,” Miller calls back, and they can her Monty's hum of agreement, “and now we know you’re faking it. Go to sleep.”

Taking pity on their friends, they do quiet down, snickering quietly as Clarke pulls the piles of blankets up over their heads.

“I can’t sleep with my face covered, so this isn’t going to fly for long,” she whispers, scooting until their fronts are pressed flush together. “But hopefully it’ll get us warmed up.”

He nods dumbly, though she can’t see him under the layers blocking light. He stays still as she gathers his hands between her much smaller ones. She start chafing them and a small, shuddery sigh escapes his lips as they do start to warm up under her touch.

“We need to make you gloves,” she whispers. “I’ll have to call you Stumpy if you lose any fingers to frostbite.”

“Thanks,” he manages when he can’t get his brain to return with any sort of banter.

“I’m all about descriptive nicknames.”

“You're very clever.”

Humming, she presses a kiss to his captive fingertips and it’s like he’s lost the ability to breathe.

“But seriously, please be careful?” she asks, her lips moving against his pinkies and ring fingers.

He has to clear his throat before he can say, “I’ll try. The snow caught us all by surprise.”

Clarke’s mouth moves away from his hands, to his great regret. But she only leans into him more so she can kiss his chin. “I know. But still.”

They lie there, still, and don’t speak for several moments.

 _Faint heart never won fair lady,_ a Middle English proverb once told him. Who is he to deny ancient literature? Taking a careful, deep breath, he leans forward, too. He brushes his nose against her cheek, prompting her to tilt her head back.

Unerringly, as if they aren’t smothered by darkness, his lips find hers.

It’s Clarke’s turn to release a shuddering sigh, but she does it through her nose so that their mouths don’t break contact. She does release his hands then, though it’s no loss when she moves to slide her fingers over his cheek and then curl around the nape of his neck.

The kiss moves quickly from cautious sips to their mouths opening to one another. They sigh into each other as their tongues brush gently together and their teeth nip at plump, lower lips. Their hands smooth across shoulders and waists. They are rarely still.

His fingers caress her stomach and breasts, bunching her shirt up and tugging the front of her bra down. He delights in her shivers, in the way she arches into his palms

Meanwhile, her hands incite, working their way under his clothes so her nails can scratch lightly at his back and hips, just under the waistband of his trousers.

He aches and, oh, how he loves her.

Though they are plenty warm, pressed together as they are, it’s still too cold to remove all of their clothes.  He feels bad that, out of necessity, she has to shed her pants entirely while he needs only unzip his and hitch them a little lower.

When he says as much to her, she gives him a sweet kiss on his cheek. It’s in stark contrast to and yet changes the very intent of what little bare skin they can allow to touch.

“S’okay,” she assures him, resting her hand on his face again once she’s settled back against him. She hooks a leg over his hip and they both gasp.

She does shiver then, so he tucks her in closer to him, as close as possible, while he pushes into her.

Lying on their sides the way they are doesn’t allow for much more than gentle rocking, but Bellamy later swears that he wouldn’t trade it for anything, because it means he can kiss her the entire time.

Through it all, their soft, labored breathing is the only sound, as if they both can’t stand to let anything, even something so fleeting as noise, escape their small nest of blankets.

After they’ve both shuddered around each other, silently crying out into each other’s mouths, they only linger for a moment before breaking apart long enough to fix their clothing. Once dealt with, they settle back in, nuzzling cheeks and necks and hugging each other close.

If Bellamy had ever allowed himself to think about what making love with Clarke would be like, he might have spent time worrying more for the time immediately _after_.

As it stands, however, there is no awkwardness between them. It’s just something that made sense, forging another bond in their already strong partnership. How could they feel out of sorts about _that_?

They drift off to sleep at the same time, wrapped around one another like links in a chain.

Outside, the wind howls, the snow falls, and the night shivers. Inside the tent, they have no reason to know it.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Romantically huddling together for warmth_ is basically my Nutella, in terms of story tropes. 
> 
> Thank you so much for all of the kudos and lovely remarks I got for the last chapter! I appreciate the encouragement so much. I am only sorry that I haven't had a chance to reply to the comments individually. I still plan to soon! I'm supposed to be working on a technical writing project for work even as we speak, so I wrote this chapter on the sly. I'm such a corporate rebel.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally decided I should finish this sucker. You'll note that this entire, plotless chapter is my written form of plugging my ears and yelling, "LA LA LA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU" to canon. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's read this, given Kudos, and left comments. It really encourages me more than I can say.

* * *

**Six  
**

* * *

 

Winter light, Bellamy learns the next morning, is a watery glow that barely touches his tent. When he comes out of a heavy sleep, he can make out dark shapes of his few possessions littering the ground, and the negative space around them is a dim blue. Though he can tell that the air is colder than he’s experienced yet, he is oddly warm and content.

He doesn’t recognize the source of this comfort until he feels movement at his back. Arms wriggle their way around him, and Bellamy’s eyes slip shut as a smile tilts up the corners of his mouth.

It only occurs to him as Clarke’s warm breath hits the back of his neck that this is the first time he’s woken with her still in his— _their_ —bed. She’s managed to sneak off every morning and he didn’t realize how bereft it left him until now that he has her there with him.

Rather than wriggle excitedly, like he wants, he chooses to be a mature adult about the situation.

“You’re welcome,” he murmurs, squinting down at her watch where it rests against his stomach before settling into his pillow again.

“ _Whff_?” Her voice is muffled by the collar of his shirt.

“It’s definitely due to my powers as a sex god that you’re still in bed so late in the day. I wore you out last night.”

She gives an unladylike snort and he feels the smallest flash of her teeth when she nips at his neck. He allows faux smugness to drown out the genuine bolt of lust that shoots through him.

“I don’t blame you for being swept away by my raw masculinity.”

Now she’s laughing outright, hugging him even closer to her.

“Ass,” she says fondly, her voice husky and sleep-laden. She hitches herself up onto her elbow so she and lean over him, peppering noisy kisses across the side of his face, ear, and neck. “We all know who the real lothario is between us.”

Bellamy’s eyes remain shut, but his smile widens to a full grin. “I assume you’re trying to grab all the glory.”

“There is no ‘trying’ here. You were full-on seduced. Really, Bellamy, there’s no shame in it. It happens to the best of people. I just have that magnetic pull.”

She starts prodding at him with tickling fingers until he rolls over to face her, and he finally opens his eyes to comb his gaze over her. “No need for false bravado here, Clarke. They call me the Casanova of Skaikru,” he informs her imperiously. “So I’m not surprised you’re so flustered in my presence.”

“’They’ being ‘you’,” she shoots back. “But you’re real cute, kid. I am sure you’ve managed to turn one or two heads. Keep up the good work.” She pats his chest condescendingly.

“I’m nearly six years older than you.”

“I know,” she agrees somberly, “which is why I’ll do my best to get you up to speed in the bedroom arts.”

He kisses her deeply, smirking when she protests grumpily as he pulls away. “I do believe a challenge is in order.”

She bites his chin. “What kind of challenge?”

“A sex challenge, obviously.”

Clarke pretends to consider him. “I mean, I _guess_ , if you really want that type of loss on your record.”

“You’re awfully confident for someone who doesn’t know the terms yet.”

“Go ahead, Casanova of Skaikru. Lay it on me.”

“Oh, I’ll lay you, but I digress,” his snicker turns into a yelp when she gives him a horse bite on his thigh. “Fine, fine. Here are the terms. We do the whole making love thing, having the sex, whatever you kids are calling it these days.”

“I do love your naughty talk,” she coos.

“And here’s the deal, we continue to do it regularly. Whoever seduces the other more wins.”

“How long does this challenge last?”

“I mean, I’m happy to have it be a running tally, with monthly wash-ups, but I guess that depends on you.” He says this casually, but a ridiculous level of nerves has kicked up in his belly, and he hopes she understands what he’s too inept to say.

As ever, though, Clarke understands him perfectly. She smiles, bashfully happy despite the subject of their discussion. “That sounds fine with me. But we should sort the details. Like, how do we determine the winner of each seduction? Is it based on who lures whom into their tent?”

Bellamy clears his throat. “Do you even _have_ a tent?” He tries (and fails) not to look too hopeful.

She presses a considering kiss to his shoulder. “You’re right, that might make it too easy. We should probably just share a tent.”

His chest burns with love for her.  “I’m relieved you see my way of thinking on this. I’m not looking to cut corners.”

“Obviously.” She sits up, crawling to the tent flaps and splitting them open a little to peer outside. “As I suspected. No one is out right now.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yup,” she confirms cheerfully as she pounces on him. “We should get started. I have a challenge to win.”

* * *

What follows is a far cry from their gentle joining the night before. By the time they collapse back onto the pallet after, their naked bodies are drenched with sweat. The tent is not nearly as cold as it was eight hours earlier, before their shared warmth could heat it. Now, they can lie above the pelts and enjoy the sharp coolness across their skin while their breaths struggle to return to normal.

“I think we should call that a draw,” Bellamy wheezes, reaching over to Clarke to pull her back into him.

“Definitely,” she agrees, panting. “I only see winners in here.”

He nuzzles her face until she tilts her head back to kiss him languidly, and he can’t seem to stop stroking her rapidly cooling skin. If the clutch of her fingers means anything, she’s of a like mind.

“I suppose now would be an awkward time to get hypothermia,” Clarkes says regretfully a minute later.

He sighs, not wanting the world to catch up with them but knowing it must. “I told Monroe we’d need to go hunting again today.”

“And I should probably go into the med bay,” she agrees. He remains where is, unabashedly watching her dress. When she notices his gaze, she jokingly does a few shimmies as she pulls her bra back on. 

He’s incapable of doing anything but smile and he knows it’ll be a problem when they have to interact with their campmates. Not that it isn’t worth it, but he is already compiling a list of snappy comebacks to whatever Miller, Raven, and Monroe have to say.

Once Clarke has finally managed to drag Bellamy out of bed and cajole him into clothes (in between teasing kisses that nearly end with him tugging her back under the covers), they go their separate ways for the day. The next time he sees her, the camp has gathered at a large bonfire.

Everyone mills around its pervasive warmth, people taking turns throwing handfuls of snow into the flames and remarking on the snaps and sizzles. After handing out the last of a boar that they’d put on a spit, Bellamy wanders the circumference of the fire, tensing when he spots Clarke sitting on a log next to Octavia. They’re talking quietly. He soon allows a relieved sigh to escape, though, when he sees Octavia crack a small smile at something Clarke’s said.

As he draws near, he catches the tail end of their conversation.

“I’m not saying I’ll ever be an amazing hunter, but I got to be okay with a spear,” Clarke shrugs.

Octavia snorts, “And to think, it only took you tripping and accidentally hitting your prey for you to learn the proper technique.”

Clarke nods soberly. “I like to think it’ll catch on throughout the clans. The classic stumble-and-throw.”

“I’ll be sure to pass the idea on,” Octavia offers. They toast each other with their cups of moonshine. As they sip their drinks, Octavia spies him. “I think I’ve just found something of yours,” she says with a wince at the strong alcohol, knocking her knee against Clarke’s and nodding to where he stands.

Clarke grins goofily when she spots him and he knows his face matches hers.

“You two _do_ know you’re really embarrassing, right?” Octavia asks, resting her chin in her hand and staring at them like they’re scientific specimens.

“Shouldn’t you be off, trouncing someone in combat?” Bellamy shoots back as he plops down onto the log next to Clarke, taking her hand.

“I can’t believe you’d suggest that,” Octavia drawls, “I’m a peace-loving sort.” He and Clarke both stare at her, unimpressed.  “And I’m a little drunk, so I think I’ll just go find Lincoln. Trounce him in a different way,” she adds with a lecherous eyebrow waggle as she stands up.

“And I thought I taught you so well about the delicacies of over-sharing,” he muses, playing with Clarke’s fingers.

“Says the pot to the kettle.” Octavia waves a hand to encompass all of him. “Poor Clarke. Everyone will know what you’re planning to do to her if you keep looking at her that way.” Then, with a not-so-gentle ruffling of his hair, she wanders over to where Lincoln is chatting quietly with Raven.

“It’s okay,” Clarke says, lacing their fingers together more firmly. “She didn’t notice that I’m telegraphing my thoughts just as much as you.”

“We’re such eye-sex exhibitionists,” he agrees.

Clarke hops up, tugging him with her. “Let’s go be social for a little bit and then we can go back to the tent for the full-body-sex portion of the evening.”

“You have such a way with words,” he jokes, ducking to smack a kiss to her cheek. “How can I refuse?”

* * *

Much, much later, they lie in the tent wrapped around each other, having an inane whispered conversation interspersed with yawns.

“You said something to me,” Clarke sighs against his jaw.

“Ah, yes, I remember it well.”

She ignores his quip. “It was the first time I snuck into your tent. While I was away.”

He hums in acknowledgement, the motion of his hand rubbing her back lulling them both into a sleepy stupor. “The thing about hoping you sing your own theme music when you’re in action? I stand by that.”

She giggles. “Other than that. You’ve actually said it a few times in a few different ways. That what we’ve done here was a making of us, but not _the_ making of us.”

“Do you believe it now?” he asks.

She reaches up, stroking his face. “I think I’m starting to.”

“I’m glad. I think it’s important for us to make it true.”

They lie there quietly for several minutes. And just when he thinks she’s drifted off to sleep, she murmurs, “Bellamy?”

“Yeah?”

Her voice is almost a whisper, and he feels more than hears her words. “I’m glad I’m making something with you.”

Somehow, he manages not to weep with what feels like a sudden reprieve from the awful, bloody, death-filled year they’ve had.

Instead, he kisses her forehead and whispers back, “Me, too.”


End file.
